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NORTHEAST ASIA

Seeking international solidarity
The leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile has called for “greater international support” amid China’s increasingly repressive policies that erase their Buddhist culture and suppress their political activities.
In an interview with DW on Dec. 7, Penpa Tsering, head of the exiled Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), painted a grim picture of the human rights conditions in Tibet as China plods forward with its “Sinicization” of the northeast Asian state.
The policy – which began after China annexed Tibet in 1951 and which Tibetans call “cultural genocide” – forces the cultural assimilation of Tibet under the Chinese Communist Party, causing their Buddhist culture to slowly disappear.
In a statement marking International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, Tsering accused China of “forging a strong sense of the Chinese national as one single community” while oppressing the Tibetan people.
Tsering and the rest of the CTA, including the 88-year-old Dalai Lama, had fled to Dharamshala in India after a failed uprising in 1959. They have since campaigned for what is dubbed the “Middle Way Approach” – which means Tibet remains part of China but enjoys greater autonomy over its own affairs, thus ensuring the preservation of their culture and identity.
Other groups, like the International Tibet Network, are campaigning for “Rangzen” (independence from China) through nonviolent action.
Rights groups have been echoing the CTA’s calls for international support.
Human Rights Watch in 2012 urged governments to sponsor a joint resolution or host diplomatic meetings between China and Tibetan activists at the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC). In 2019, the National Endowment for Democracy called on international civil society organizations to intensify an international campaign “defending Tibetan rights and identity based on historical truth and international law.”
To date, only the United States has passed a law on Tibet. The U.S.’s Tibetan Policy and Support Act, enacted in 2020 , recognizes the Tibetan’s right to choose their own leaders.
Other democratic countries like Australia and Canada have also expressed support for Tibet. Other countries have not been as vocal in their support for Tibet.
In October, China won one of 15 seats on the 47-member UNHRC despite Tibet’s campaign urging member U.N. states to reject its re-election bid. Tibetans condemned the 154 governments that had “refused to take a stand” with their people and called Beijing’s post to the world’s highest rights body “an undeserved reward for repression.”
SOUTHEAST ASIA

No to LGBTQI+ rehab
LGBTQI+ advocates in Malaysia have renewed their call to abolish all conversion centers and practices after the Johor state government announced plans to open “rehabilitation centers” for LGBTQI+ people and individuals deemed “deviant” under Islamic teachings.
Spearheading this call was the Justice for Sisters (JFS) group, which urged the Johor state to stop its plans to establish such a center. They argued that detaining people on the grounds of their sexual orientation and gender identity “undeniably amounts to torture.”
This, after the state’s religious affairs committee chair Fared Khalid announced plans to allocate RM400,000 (US$85,000) to open a permanent “rehabilitation center” by July next year for people found guilty of same-sex relations by the Sharia Court.
The centers, the official said, were intended to provide “religious counseling and education” to those convicted of same-sex relations under Islamic law. The goal is to “help them return to the right path” and “reintegrate into society,” he said.
The facilities are part of Malaysia’s broader “rehabilitation and criminalization” approach to dealing with the LGBTQI+ community, which it considers antithetical to Islamic teachings. The Muslim-majority country currently operates on a dual legal system, with civil laws for the general population and Sharia law for Muslims on matters related to family, morality, and religious practices.
Homosexuality remains criminalized in the Southeast Asian country, with sodomy punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Even acts such as wearing rainbow-colored watches (commonly associated with the LGBTQI+ movement) are seen as “harming the morality” of the country and could be met with prison terms.
Last year, Human Rights Watch and JFS documented several state-sponsored discrimination policies and programs anchored on the belief that homosexuality was an illness or disorder that needed to be “cured.” Apart from the rehabilitation centers, the government also has laws that penalize gender nonconformity (e.g., a man posing as a woman) and routinely censors content about LGBTQI+ awareness on mass media.
Some 1,733 LGBTQI+ individuals were sent to mukhayyams (conversion retreats) run by Malaysia’s Islamic Development Department, former prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob told parliament in 2021.
A Kuala Lumpur-based activist told HRW that these hostile practices became more frequent and intense “as conservative strand of Islam becomes dominant in shaping the politics and policies that dictate the lives of the country’s citizens including LGBTQI+ persons.”
SOUTH ASIA

Safe space on social media
A regional coalition has appealed to Nepal to reconsider its recent social media policies, particularly its decision to ban the social media app TikTok, which it said “go against global best practices and were introduced without any public or industry consultations.”
In a Dec. 5 letter, the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) urged Minister of Communications and Information Technology Rekha Sharma to first consult with industry stakeholders and civil society organizations before she moves forward with implementing these new regulations. It also cautioned against more “abrupt bans” targeting other social media platforms, saying it could “negatively impact investor sentiment.”
“We know that you share our vision of a dynamic digital economic ecosystem for Nepal,” said the group, which counts among its members internet and technology companies operating in Asia. “We now need your full and direct support in ensuring that Nepal does not go down a highly counter-productive path that could derail the efforts that your government and the ICT industry have painstakingly invested in for many years.”
The letter comes after Nepal announced a new “social media directive” that seeks to regulate social media platforms operating within the country. Among others, it would require social media companies to register with the government and obtain a license; and to establish a liaison office in Nepal. Platforms not registered with Nepal could be shut down.
The directive will likely impact Nepal’s already dismal performance in protecting digital rights. It’s also part of a broader pattern of social media regulation in Asia, where governments have either blocked, demanded access to user data, or imposed cybersecurity laws to throttle back the growth of social media companies.
Experts believe that this pattern takes inspiration from China, home to the “world’s most sophisticated and restrictive system of internet control,” according to Chatham House.
Vietnam, for example, has tightened its restrictions on social media platforms by introducing a 24-hour takedown requirement for problematic content upon government request, and requiring users to verify their identification. Like Nepal, it has also required international platforms to open local offices and store data within the country.
In 2021, India announced its new Information Technology (IT) Rules, which required social media companies to hire three local residents as executives. Critics have called it a “hostage-taking law” that basically makes sure someone in India could be held accountable for any blunders committed by the platform.
GLOBAL/REGIONAL

Empowering civil society
An international civil rights watchdog has urged donors and funders to provide “long-term, unrestricted and core support” to countries where civic spaces are increasingly shrinking or limited, as it warned of a “major civic space crisis” that must be reversed as soon as possible.
The latest CIVICUS Monitor released on Dec. 6, found that almost a third of the world’s population now lives in “closed” civic spaces – the highest since 2018. Conversely, the report said, only 2 percent of the world’s people enjoy living in open countries where they can freely express and associate without fear of retaliation.
The trend is even more apparent in Asia, where, according to the CIVICUS report, there are now eight “closed” societies: Afghanistan, China, Hong Kong, Laos, Myanmar, North Korea, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.
Other countries weren’t faring much better: Brunei, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Sri Lanka were classified as “repressed,” while Bhutan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives and Nepal were rated “obstructed.”
Common to all these countries is the targeting and harassment of human rights defenders, activists, and journalists. It was also not uncommon for their governments to wield lawfare against dissent, as is the case with China’s national security law, India’s anti-terror law, and Singapore’s anti-fake news law.
The watchdog stressed the need to direct support to advocacy groups working in countries with “rapidly closing civic space,” and to adopt grant-making modalities for emerging social movements.
The report’s findings, while sobering, tracked with previous reports documenting the global erosion of democracy and freedoms. A Nov. 2 report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) noted that democracy had been declining for the sixth year in a row.
A separate report by Freedom House, released in March, said that this backsliding went back further by 17 years. This erosion, the organization said, was fueled not only by the expansion of authoritarian states, but rather the “fading and inconsistent presence of major democracies on the international stage.”
It was, however, more optimistic that the world had finally reached a turning point and “could be standing on the threshold of a democratic comeback.” International IDEA is more pragmatic, in that it believes reversals can only be achieved by strengthening “countervailing institutions” such as the judiciary, civil society groups, and other grassroots movements.